


The Man You Want to Be

by asuralucier



Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: Choking, Crazy Prepared, Food and Wine and Emergency Blanton's, Gun Kink, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Canon, Rough Sex, Santino and John and John's motherfucking hands, Sexual Tension, Terrible People Being Terrible, Violence as a love language, cabin fever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:00:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22333021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asuralucier/pseuds/asuralucier
Summary: After Santino kills a man over a game of billiards, he and his impromptu bodyguard John Wick go into hiding.
Relationships: Santino D'Antonio/John Wick
Comments: 13
Kudos: 176
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NeverwinterThistle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverwinterThistle/gifts).



> A huge thank you to ictus, who in addition to beta-ing, pulled this out of Google translate hell. As ever, I'm so grateful to you!

“ _Capisco_ ,” Gianna said, stone-faced, “ _grazie, ciao_.” The moment she got off the phone, she raised her arm, as if to hurl the offending phone into the nearest wall, in hopes that it would shatter. But the thing was a brick, built to survive twenty feet drops. Gianna knew this, and thought better of it, in the end. 

“How bad?” John asked. He’d kept quiet during the frenzied duration of her conversation. If this were any other situation, he might have waited for her to speak first. But this time, knowing what he did, John thought Gianna would appreciate his initiative. She hated wasting time almost as much as he did. 

“Bad enough.” Gianna didn’t look at him. Her face was still turned from John and frozen in unhappiness. In John’s estimation, Gianna D’Antonio had nearly everything: the Camorra in her young, yet still iron grasp, a good head on her shoulders, and enough ambition to put her old man to shame. 

(And so Amerigo D’Antonio was ashamed. Ashamed about how his daughter had so far flouted years and years and tradition, broken long established ties with a number of families once amenable to being under the hold of the Camorra, for they did things honorably.

But Amerigo D’Antonio was also dead. A dead man’s shame was but an inconvenience, quickly forgotten.) 

And yet, with the death of one man over a so-called friendly game of billiards, Gianna suddenly had everything to lose. 

John said, “What do you need me to do?”

“You mean besides separate my brother’s head from his neck? And wring him fucking dry until there is no blood left in his fucking useless body?” 

“Yeah, besides that,” John nodded. “I’m not going to do that.”

“And why not?” Gianna pressed; finally turning the full force of her glare straight towards him. John was unnerved by the black starkness of the glare as much as he was impressed by it. 

“He’s your brother,” John said. It seemed absurd for him to remind her, but it also seemed to be something Gianna forgot from time to time. 

Gianna laughed, and the sound was grating, but John wouldn’t dream of calling it what it was, unladylike. “You’ve worked for my father too long. I always knew Papà was soft in the head. Santino is also twenty-two. Not twelve, not seven. Old enough to realize who he is, and that every word that comes out of his mouth has fucking consequences.” 

John had worked a number of years for Amerigo D’Antonio. His first, and only gig after being released from New York in the usual way, and although he didn’t mean to stay, he had, somehow. While others in his position drifted from one post or another, content to live a life with only the lightest of tethers, John had liked the time he spent under the Maestro; he was paid well, and he learned.

He’d learned, if nothing else, to be flexible. Gianna was nothing like her old man. 

“Then you’re going to squirrel him away.” Gianna strode to a heavy desk apparently screwed to the corner of Amerigo’s study. The story went that one time, some idiot tried to steal it by taking it apart plank by plank. She got out a pen and uncapped it with her teeth. After she’d finished writing, Gianna thrust the paper at John without further ceremony. 

John took the paper from her, felt the heavy stock beneath his fingers. Then he committed the information that she’d written down to memory, then after that, to habit. Only then, did John hand Gianna back the paper and watch her set fire to it.

As she did so, John said, “I thought you wanted the blood wrung out of his body with my bare hands.” 

“I do,” said Gianna. “And I could stand there and watch. That way, he might learn something.” 

“I have a high tolerance for -” John had to think a moment. “ - Mostly everything? Maybe we just leave him at the university and watch Nature do her work.” 

“What a romantic you are, John. Sometimes you really break my heart.” Gianna twisted her mouth unkindly. “But like you say, Santino is my brother. I think you best be off.”

*

When he was in New York, John was given only the finest schooling. He’d learned how to sit for hours behind a scope, although also that it wasn’t his favorite thing to be doing. He’d learned to stake out a mark so quietly that when a man died, he never saw John coming. This held true, even when John disposed of a man at close-range - most often with a gun pressed against the hollow of someone’s throat. Other times, it was a jagged knife’s edge, and only on the rarest of occasions, did John use his hands. And of course, he’d learned to deal with things going horrifically wrong, often when he least needed the trouble. 

But most of all, John had learned that his job was a thankless one, although Amerigo D’Antonio had tried to disavow him of such a notion. With Amerigo’s two children, John had let go for such an illusion and quickly. He was an employee of the D’Antonios, and the Camorra further afield, and it was a post that was better without all that patriarchal muddle, anyway. 

“If you’re here, John Wick,” Santino said, arms crossed, “I must have fucked up pretty bad.” 

“It’s not my place to say,” John answered, “but we have to go now, Santino.” He adjusted his jacket as he spoke; it was almost too warm to be wearing one, but John would rather contend with the heat than to be caught off guard in another way. He would have felt naked without a gun (or guns) pressed carefully against his person for immediate use in case of emergency. 

For all of the schooling that John had received with thanks, the world of the university was foreign to him. He disliked the open courtyard where they stood now, with neatly trimmed grass and evenly planted trees, each with a plaque of dedication naming a former member of staff, who had no doubt contributed to the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Turin. Santino D’Antonio was in his final year, and thereby a regular enough fixture around the place. John felt exposed. Where other people might have admired the neatness of the hedge and the dedication to history, all John saw were gaps and blindspots, at any moment, a bullet might sing past, too late for him to stop, and make straight for Santino’s head. 

Santino was shorter than him by a little, but his provenance, the blood that warmed his body, that assured him he was _someone_. Santino was not like John, who was only useful when he was nobody at all. Full of such pride of being, Santino surged up and meet John nose to nose. 

“It is your place if I say it is. You don’t just work for my sister. You work for the D’Antonios.” Santino jabbed a finger at himself. “That’s me too, you forget?” 

John sighed, Santino had a point and John didn’t exactly have time to fight. There was plenty of time to do that while they were on the road. 

“Then yes, you fucked up really bad, Gianna wants to stand there and watch me wring your neck. Says you might learn something.” 

Santino opened his mouth and then closed it again. John seized the moment and grabbed him by the arm, hard enough to get his attention. John felt his knuckles warm with the intensity of Santino’s glare. Finally, Santino shook him off and squared himself. “Okay, fine. So we go. Where are we going?” 

*

John had no idea where they were going. But this was not so unusual. Most of his jobs included a name, a location, a time, and then he was trusted to make up the rest. 

“I have exams,” said Santino. “If Gianna is so concerned about my finishing university, then she could have waited until the end of the week, at least.” 

They were on a sleepy stretch of road leading out of Turin, and as far as John could tell, they weren’t being followed, and there weren’t any suspicious-looking cars ahead of them either. John disliked single lane roads, as it was easy to get boxed in. But this told him two things: one, that Santino’s would-be-pursuers hadn’t yet got wind that he was being whisked out of the city, that John had indeed gotten there in time; two, that maybe Santino’s would-be-pursuers weren’t top-notch and maybe Gianna had worried over nothing.

Gianna never worried over nothing. 

“I’m sure she could arrange for your resits after all this blows over.” 

Santino was staring out at the window. His cheek was resting in his palm, unruly curls framing his strong jaw. John could tell, even now, that the young man was grinding his teeth. “Oh yes, she would. By storming the dean’s office and threatening to blow his head clean off with a Benelli. What’s to stop _la princepessa_ from demanding that I pass without even sitting for my exams?” 

John said, “Would you like that?” 

Santino drew in a deep breath. He seemed annoyed, and the dull grinding of his teeth seemed to grow louder and louder. Finally, he said, “Pull over.” 

John scanned his surroundings again. Nothing, but he was hardly one to rest on his laurels. “No.”

“Do you even know where we’re going?” 

John did, in fact. He knew the address, and he knew just about where to get there. He’d consulted a map before he'd left Gianna's presence, since she didn’t want anything to be tracked by GPS. John recited the address without hesitation, and didn’t stop the car. 

“I know where that is,” said Santino, “Pull over and let me drive. Besides. You might need your hands to reach your guns when somebody does come after us.” 

“The Civello family isn’t just anybody,” John said. “You killed Gregorio Civello’s nephew. Also his top lieutenant. Over a game of billiards.” 

For a long moment, Santino said nothing. John had gotten the story via Gianna, who had gotten wind of the whole debacle through several (very angry) sources. So far, the only fact that all parties could agree on was that Gregorio Civello’s nephew had gotten pummeled by Santino over a game of billiards, and such a confrontation had come about after they’d traded a few choice words.

John had met Michael Civello once or twice. The man was a handful of years older than Santino and still younger than John. Although he wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, what John remembered most clearly about Michael Civello was that the man was nearly seven feet tall and built like a tank. He decided to leave out the matter of choice words, for the moment. No one could agree on what the words were and John wasn’t paid to guess. 

“All the reason you might need your hands, John.” Santino smiled, showing teeth. “Fucking pull over.” 

*

It turned out that John didn’t need his hands, and he felt the tension he’d been holding in his body gather and twitch at the ends of his fingers. A little more than an hour later, Santino drove them into the sleepy village town of Barolo, famous for wine. John had seen photographs of the town once in a magazine. The looming shape of a castle stretched up ahead. 

“We used to vacation here,” said Santino, neatly toeing the line between smug and dismissive. Gianna had a version of the same, but on her, the expression wasn’t quite the same, less arresting, maybe. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that my sister’s nostalgic. It’s because we own every fucking person who lives here. If a stranger comes here and drinks an espresso, we’d know about it.” 

John looked around. Despite Santino’s boast, the place seemed to be full of tourists (John thought he knew this, because half of them looked sunburned) and it was easy enough to imagine that every bulge in an oversized bag was bad news, potentially. 

“That’s a lot of espresso,” John said. “You must be raking it in.” 

“Of course we are.” Santino touched a hand to his sunglasses. “Between that and the wine. Well. How the hell else would we afford you?”

John thought it better not to answer that. Instead, he looked around again, sussing out a parameter of five meters, in all directions. He was glad that it turned out to be nearly an impossible task, and by the time Santino had John’s complete attention again, he seemed to have just finished saying something. 

“I’m sorry, what?” 

“Do you want to stop for espresso? I could introduce you around,” Santino said, looking at him up and down. John thought about that look as the last thing Michael Civello saw before a billiard cue went straight down his fucking throat.

John shook his head. “Not really.” It was the sun, or something, that was doing his head in. “Is there none where we’re going?” 

“Who do you take me for?” Santino scoffed. “Of course there is.” 

*

Once they were out of the center of Barolo, which Santino confirmed offhand to be a tourist sinkhole despite the local population holding steady under eight hundred, John began to feel better. There was only one road out to where they were apparently going, but eventually, they weren’t really on a road at all. 

Eventually, they came upon a cabin where Santino guided the car to a gentle stop. He took his hand off the stick and heaved a self-satisfied sigh: “ _Eccola._ What do you think?” 

“I think it could be a security nightmare,” John said, telling the truth. The location of the cabin was a strange liminal space between perfect seclusion and imminent exposure. It immediately made him nervous. “You used to vacation here?” It was possibly true, but John had no real way of knowing. This time, not only was he not paid to guess, he didn’t want to.

“What’s with that tone?” Santino eyed him again. After that, before John could tell him to stay in the car, Santino helped himself to that. He stepped out, stretched, and looked at John through the window. “You don’t think I vacation?” 

“I know you vacation,” John said. He had firsthand knowledge of how Santino vacationed: extravagantly, loudly, devil-may-care fuck you. He had the fortune to miss out on all the fun up until now, but the fronting the cleanup in Rome that once, had told John everything he ever needed to know about the way Santino went about things. This...hardly seemed to fit the bill. “Just not here.” 

Santino considered this, and brushed it out of the way like he brushed hair out of his eyes. “I bet I even know what you’re thinking.” 

Slowly, John got out of the car. Even though he hadn’t been sitting still all that long, it felt like he’d been sitting for a decade, baking in the warm Italian sun, even here in the north, slowly completing the transformation from stone to man and blood and flesh. 

John sighed and bit the proverbial bullet, “What am I thinking?” 

“That this place is too quiet. A security nightmare. Too exposed. Maybe there’s a bogeyman or something hiding in these woods.” 

“Bogeymen don’t hide in woods,” John said, for the sake of conformity. And yet it was easy for him to see in his mind’s eye, to see these same woods fill up with real men sent by Gregorio Civello carrying real guns. “And I’ve said that.” 

“You did.” Santino put his glasses back on and strode towards the cabin like the fucking owned it. He probably did, or at least, a good chunk of it. “Haven’t you ever read any Shakespeare, John? Thinking makes it so. Come, I want to show you something.” 

*

The inside of the cabin had a strange smell. It was the undeniable smell of musty wood overlaid with industrial strength cleaner. Not a nice smell, but John had smelled worse. Much worse.

“Oh good, she left us a bottle. We’ll have it later.” 

John glanced at the solid wooden table as soon he’d finished inspecting the windows, which were, thankfully, bulletproof. There was no such thing as bulletproof glass when it came to a determined gun, but sometimes, even five minutes was a godsend and could turn the tide.

There was indeed a bottle of what looked like very nice red on the table. The bottle didn’t have a label on it, and someone (Gianna maybe) had left a note, which Santino either ignored or didn’t notice. John doubted it was the latter. He pocketed it for later. 

*

“Did you get into trouble a lot, as a boy? Or did you...how do you put it?” Santino’s lips stretched into a thin, plastic smile, amenable to ugliness at the last second. But not yet. 

“How do I put what?” 

“Oh, I’ve got it.” Santino twisted around to glance at him. “Or did you just follow? Like sheep? Some people say English is such a dead, not so evocative language, but I think exactly the opposite.” 

They were climbing down a series of stairs, old, crooked, and creaky. Every time a step sounded beneath his feet, groaning under the weight of his heavy-soled shoes, the bad feeling that John had only just succeeded in shaking off came creeping back, like a dark shadow woven deep into his bloodstream. 

“Then you wouldn’t be anywhere without the sheep,” John said. The metaphor was galling, but he couldn’t exactly say why. “Wolves like you would go hungry and starve. And no, that’s not how I would put it. - We there yet?” 

“There you go, spoiling my fun,” Santino sniffed, his unhappiness evident enough, though it didn’t show properly on his face. But John was adept enough at reading the body; he didn’t need to look far, just the impatient, still boyish slouch of his shoulders, slowly overtaking the thin veneer of confidence previously settled there. “Yes, we’re here now.” 

What John saw, as Santino turned on one too-bright, bare lightbulb via a pulley switch, were rows and rows of shelves lined with bottles of wine. Santino passed his fingers over a groove along an edge, and then John started again as the wood around them began to creak.

Santino’s grip was iron and stronger than John remembered. He could have broken it, but couldn’t fault the younger man for springing on him the element of surprise. 

“Relax. You shoot up the inventory in here, it’s going to be your head on the chopping block next.” 

“My head’s never not on the chopping block,” John said. “Wouldn’t make a difference, either way.” 

An answer was brewing in Santino, venomous and dark. John watched him getting ready to spit it out. But then the man swallowed it again. “Anyway, this place is state of the art. Cameras, war chest, anything you could want, anything in case of emergency. Even you can’t complain.” 

Behind the wooden shelves was a vault, metal and absolute. Santino put his thumb against it and the lock opened. Inside, was as promised, anything that John could want in the name of good security. 

“Closed-circuit?” John asked, glancing at the myriad of screens taking up the whole of one wall. No room was left unmonitored, even the bathrooms. There were three, including a master suite with a built in bath downstairs.

Santino snorted, “Do you mean, if Gianna is watching us like a pervert? Don’t think so. I’m sure she could. If she wanted.” 

John could think of many words to describe Gianna. “Pervert” was not one of them. 

Other supplies: guns, top of the line, and corresponding ammunition; non-perishables, even though the idea of Santino consenting to eat something from a can almost made John want to lose his shit. Almost.

“Where’s this lead to?” After checking several floorboards underneath his feet, John concluded that they were hollow. 

“Castle. Middle of town. We drove past it.” Santino smiled, showing teeth. “All this shit. Very James Bond. I keep telling Gianna we should get into the movies; between depressed people who drink wine and depressed and destitute people who hide out at the pictures, we wouldn’t lack for anything. Happy now?” 

“Not really.” 

“Fine, suit yourself.” Santino rolled his eyes. “Be unhappy. I’m going to get a fucking drink.” 

*

Later, when Santino left John and half the bottle of red to go settle into his bedroom somewhere upstairs, (“It’s the one with all the books; she thinks of everything.”), John checked Gianna’s note.

 _For you, for all the trouble. Finest vintage. G._

John rang Gianna; by the fourth ring, he was almost ready to hang up. John was still discontent, but it was hard to channel any of that ire towards Gianna. Besides, John had always read Gianna’s unavailability as an extension of her trust. 

Finally, on the fifth ring: “John. I’ve got three minutes.” 

“Maybe I do want to use my hands,” John said, tapping one knuckle on the table. 

“Well, let the wine dissuade you, for now. Didn’t you get my note?” 

John had poured himself a glass on Santino’s orders, as if the bastard could order him to pour wine down his own throat. But he hadn’t drunk from it. 

“I don’t know the first thing about vintage.” 

“I’ve also left you some Blanton’s in the vault. But that’s for emergencies only.” Gianna didn’t bother asking if Santino had shown John the vault. For all the ways that she tried to pretend she didn’t, she knew her brother, her silence belied her ignorance. 

John changed the subject. “Any luck with Civello?” 

“Not yet,” Gianna said. “Dick still won’t take my calls. Will you make sure Santino studies, please? I’ve left him some books. He’ll have resits. To be arranged as soon as I can manage.” 

“You have a Benelli. Sure it won’t take up that much of your time.” 

Gianna corrected him: “Several Benellis. What does that have to do with anything?” 

A noise alerted John to Santino on top of the stairs. He’d changed clothes, still holding a half-filled wineglass. Under his armpit was a book, but more important than what the book was, was perhaps its placement, and the fact that Santino was flipping his sister the bird. 

John reported this, half expecting a bullet to fly in through the window without further ado to dissuade Santino from ever doing that again. 

Gianna said simply, “Tell him to go fuck himself. Anyway, what about the Benelli?” 

John reported that too. “Never mind. It was a joke.” He hung up. 

“Do you joke?” Santino said. “I’m not asking, as a joke.” 

“Yeah,” John said. He gave up and pressed his lips to his wineglass at last. “Not very successfully.” 

*

John took the room next to Santino’s. He could tell it hadn’t been lived in for some time, even if the non-stench of cleaning product tried to hide the fact. The sheets on the bed smelled oppressive and new and the walls were bare, devoid of personality. Still, he had a view outside of his window and a good vantage point of the path leading up to the cabin proper. John didn’t like the fact that the bed was shoved against the window, but before he could rectify that, he was interrupted. 

“I’m bored,” Santino announced, although John could have told him he breathed too loud and that he’d already given himself away. “She tell you anything else besides for me to go screw myself?” 

John thought about it. “That she’ll arrange for your resits when she can manage. Without a Benelli.” 

“You’re funny.”

“I’m deadly serious.” 

“Fuck.” Santino expelled the word easily with a sigh and stepped into the room. Now John noticed he wasn’t wearing socks or shoes. Clearly, Santino felt at home here, or maybe his comfort was designed to meticulously to affect in John the opposite. John had been Amerigo’s personal find when the man had stopped in the Continental in Manhattan for a fated drink years ago. Amerigo had discovered John losing pints of blood in the bar, but still not willing to give up on the dregs of his Blanton’s. Apparently, his dedication to drink had so impressed Amerigo, better known as the Maestro in certain circles, and he’d pronounced John’s dedication to good drink “thoroughly in the trueness of the Italian spirit.” 

(Gianna told him, much later: “You know, you can’t really blame me for breaking tradition. Papà did it first. You could say that I’m expanding on his vision. It’s what a good daughter would do, no? Carry on her father’s legacy.”) 

“John. John, I’m _talking_ to you.” 

John came back to himself. He came back to himself, aware that his back was pressed uncomfortably against the wall, the wood of the windowsill jutted persistently into his spine, and that Santino’s face was inches away from his own, sucking up all the air around him so much so that when John inhaled, he wondered if he was breathing in carbon dioxide. Probably not, but oxygen had a hard time making its way into John’s lungs when he next breathed. 

Still, somehow, John found enough air to speak. “What do you think you’re doing, Santino?” 

“Getting your attention.” 

Santino touched no part of him, but John felt every inch of space between them as though the young man had dared to. If there was something he knew about Santino, it was that it was unfair to assume that Santino did things for the sake of doing. That was too easy. Too simple. Gianna liked to think that her brother was simple for reasons that it wasn’t John’s place to entertain. But he disagreed, and for another whole host of reasons, didn’t want to think of why. Too much work.

John blinked and stared at Santino still inches away from his own face. Santino had light eyes that John couldn’t recall seeing anywhere else in the extensive D’Antonio family tree except maybe on a first cousin, on his mother’s side. The cousin was possibly dead, John tried to remember and found that he couldn’t really. 

John said, “You have my attention.” 

“Do I really?” Santino pressed forward, and the way he pressed his knee firmly into the mattress made the bed frame creak beneath it. 

At last, John gave in to the slow itch that had overtaken his hands. He felt the slow heat of Santino’s eyes wound itself up with that itch, and what he could have done in a few seconds, John drew out. The air around his piece, as he tightened his grip around his gun and cleared it from its holster. 

Very slowly, John pressed the muzzle against Santino’s collarbone, and then up, against the hollow of his throat. And then finally, touching his bottom lip. 

John said, “Yeah. Do I look like I’m not paying attention?” 

To his credit, Santino didn’t flinch away from the unkind - no, entirely cruel - reality of what a gun really meant. John sometimes forgot for himself, because holding a gun felt as natural as anything else. As breathing, maybe. Santino also managed to not go cross-eyed, which happened more than one would think, if John’s varied experiences were anything to go by. 

Santino still didn’t break his gaze. He brought one hand up, and curled his fingers around the muzzle of John’s gun. Then, he parted his lips and fed the muzzle inside of his mouth.

John glided his finger over the safety. 

The gun clicked, the sound a thousand times louder, likely, in both of their imaginations than in real life. But the click echoed anyway, making John’s ears ring.

Santino’s eyes widened, and he seemed to want to form words, the way his jaw worked, but then he seemed to think better of it and cleared his throat after the gun had been withdrawn from his mouth.

John looked at the end of the muzzle, shiny with spit. He beat Santino to the punch, “Wouldn’t want any accidents, would we? I just cocked the safety on.” 

“Cocked.” 

John stared back evenly. “It’s a word.” 

“You.” Santino started. He coughed again, and John felt one layer of tension dissipate as Santino moved to stand, again. The other, invisible and a little sticky, stayed in the room along with the lingering smell of cleaning product. Then he said, “I’m going to get something to eat. - Are you going to drink that?” 

John looked at his wineglass; the wine was darker than deoxygenated blood. He handed it over, and watched the straight, stubborn line of Santino’s spine as the young man strode out of the room.

*

Not only had the cabin been meticulously cleaned from top to bottom, it was also stocked with the finest foodstuffs that left even Santino without complaint. Inspecting the cabinets seemed to make Santino forget for the moment, that he was _bored_. 

Finally, he seemed to find what he was looking for and made a satisfied sound. “We’ll have to have this. It goes stale quickly, otherwise. Have you ever had focaccia, John?” 

“Once,” said John, who was standing in front of the coffeemaker wondering _how the fuck_. Not that he felt like admitting it out loud. “With your old man, at a cafe. Thirteen people died. One of my first jobs.” 

Santino didn’t look impressed. “Yes, all right. But how was the focaccia?” 

John shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

John turned away from the coffeemaker and wondered if there was instant, somewhere in the cabinets that Santino was still rifling through. Without looking at him, Santino said, “Then you haven’t had focaccia. You always remember when you have focaccia worth having.” 

John disagreed, but as he started to argue, he caught himself and thought better of it. They hadn’t been in close proximity together for even a day, and John could foresee many other, say, more prudent hills to die on in the coming days. For reasons he couldn’t quite pinpoint, John had the sinking feeling (no doubt adjacent to the thorough lack of caffeine in his system) that he and Santino were going to be stuck here together for a very long time. 

Whether or not John remembered the last time he had enjoyed focaccia suddenly became a very small thing, compared to all the other arguments they could be having. 

John said finally, gesturing towards the coffeemaker, “Do you know how to work this thing?” 

Santino put down John’s wineglass, having polished off the dregs. Between sips, he’d managed to lay out a spread of sliced focaccia on a wooden chopping board and poured a little bit of oil into a small glass bowl. Then he tore off some focaccia and dunked it into the bowl without further fanfare. He said, chewing, “You don’t?” 

“I usually have better things to do,” John said, “but I could use a coffee.” 

Of course, John hadn’t meant it as an insult, that Santino had the sort of leisure time that could in fact be dedicated to making good coffee. It was true, but the beauty about the truth was that anyone with money could bend it with a snap of their fingers. But his body was instinctively prepared for a fight; after all, he had plenty of evidence that Santino’s mood could turn sour without any provocation. 

“Eat,” said Santino simply, and John obeyed even though he wasn’t hungry. “What kind of coffee do you want?” 

“Surprise me.” John shrugged. He followed Santino’s routine from earlier. First, bread, and then submersing it in oil. He wasn’t expecting it to be bad, but he wasn’t exactly expecting to like it either. 

Santino seemed to have gotten a start on John’s coffee, having procured coffee grounds from somewhere. The machine came grudgingly to life, as if it’d been asleep for a long time. But he was still watching John out of the corner of his eye. “Good, yes? It’s the truffle oil that makes it.” 

John swallowed, “Sounds expensive.” 

“We can afford it,” said Santino, smugness oozing everywhere in his voice not unlike the truffle oil that sat in the glass bowl, “so what does it matter?” 

John assented, “I guess it doesn’t.” 

After not even a minute, Santino set down coffee in front of John, poured neatly into a warmed shot glass, courtesy of the machine. “I forget how much I like this. The machine.” He added the last part in a hurry, as if he thought John really needed to be dispelled of the notion that Santino might like his current circumstances. John almost wished he could relish the idea of them being on the same page, but he knew better. 

John drank his espresso, it tasted bitter and then something else. “Of course.” 

“I keep forgetting to order one for my apartment, in Torino,” Santino said. He was staring very intently at the coffee machine, as if he could dismantle the thing cog by cog through the force of sheer will. “Would you remind me, please?” 

John helped himself to more focaccia and truffle oil. He liked it even better on the second go, and maybe disliked himself for thinking that. “If you’d like.” 

*

Days passed. 

John might have lost track of how many, but he wasn’t paid to be sloppy. His relationship with Santino took up the strange guise of two prisoners who didn’t know their place; one imprisoned the other, though it was difficult to tell who was who. John wasn’t the best at sitting on his heels and waiting. While he could do it if push came to shove, he still disliked it. 

John checked his phone for any news, any message from Gianna with regards to Gregorio Civello and his ilk, and found nothing. He’d tried calling her once and she didn’t pick up. That was reason enough not to try again. 

Perhaps the most surprising thing was that Santino mostly left John alone. He kept to himself in his room, only coming out for meals, and even then, they spoke very little. 

“We’re going out,” Santino said, leaning against John’s doorway; he was dressed, sunglasses fit snugly in his shirt pocket. John liked his privacy as much as the next man, but the job came first. He tried to remember the last time he’d closed a door of his own volition, and couldn’t recall. “Make yourself presentable.” 

“I’m in the middle of something,” said John, looking down at himself. He put down the semi-auto he was currently dismantling and gestured at the mess around him. “And no, we’re not.” 

The cabin had air conditioning, according to Santino, but it appeared to be broken. John wasn’t wearing a shirt, and for once, maybe Santino wasn’t looking at him like he was some sort of irritable insect. 

“You do as I say.” 

Santino stepped inside the room and slammed the door behind him. The message rang loud and clear: _or else_. 

John flexed his fingers. The unpleasant tingle of cleaning solvent pricked at his skin. He needed to wash his hands. 

“I don’t think you understand the reality of the fucking situation you’re in,” John told him, and the blow landed where it ought to. He didn’t swear much and the idea that he could, seemed to shock Santino into actually paying attention. 

“I’ve done jobs for Gregorio Civello,” John said. “It’s not as if he doesn’t know how to get a hold of me. Do you really think that he wouldn’t call me and offer me a number? And that number might be high enough for me to strangle you while you sleep?” 

Santino’s throat bobbed almost violently, and then he stilled. “Does Gianna know that?” 

“Maybe,” John said. “I don’t know. It was when I was still working under your father. Amerigo believed in making friends with his enemies. A softer approach.” He stopped after that. It was no business of John’s, how the Camorra chose to conduct themselves with the other Families. 

“And now Papà is dead. Whereas, my sister and me, we might live forever,” Santino said. He dropped down next to John on the floor. He folded into himself, circling lightly-muscled arms around his knees. “Has Gregorio Civello gotten in touch with you?” 

John started working again. It was something to keep him from feeling as restless as Santino clearly did, too. And plus, guns needed cleaning and looking after; when John had nowhere else to turn, it was a relief to turn to fall back on old, reliable habits. After thinking a moment, John motioned for Santino to pass him the clear plastic bottle of solvent, and Santino didn’t argue, for once. 

John drew in a breath. “No, not yet.” 

Santino gazed at him behind a mess of dark curls, the intent in his eyes still clear and bright. “Okay. Out of curiosity, what is your number?” 

“Don’t know,” John said, and that was the truth. He once had a number, because it was a way of doing things. The nature of a hired gun was that he had a number. He could be bought, simple, because if a man couldn’t be bought and paid for, then he was out of a job. 

And yet John hadn’t thought about his number for some time. He said, “If Gregorio rings up, I’ll let you know. Start a bidding war.” 

Santino almost laughed, but then the sound aborted before it could linger long in the languid summer air. He sneered instead and got up. “Until then, you still do as I say. The last thing I need is for this damn place to turn you into a rabid dog. You have ten minutes.” 

Whether John was slowly losing his mind was one thing, whether it was the cabin that was at fault for this supposed condition was another thing entirely. 

But of course, he wasn’t going to argue. 

*

John insisted on driving, and Santino didn’t disagree this time, and the short drive to Barolo was nearly pleasant. The village was quieter this time around, everyone knocked out by the heat. 

Santino insisted they get gelato from a hole-in-the-wall type place and greeted the man who served them by name. Then Santino demurred as the man, Paolo, remarked that Santino had grown taller, but only a little less pretty. John got the sense that it was some kind of joke from a long time ago. That the D’Antonios might have an entire village at their beck and call sounded like something out of a film - straight out impossible. But John had been around long enough now, to know that there was no such thing. 

“...And how is Amelia? Husband still behaving, or do we have to send over a wiseguy to straighten him out?” There was a bit of a line forming behind him, but either everyone was in on the memo that Santino was the head honcho around town or everybody was used to moving slow around here. Slow made John nervous; it meant things could go wrong in a blink of an eye and move too fast. 

Santino was still talking. He jerked a thumb in John’s direction. “Got one with me right here. - Hey. What do you want, anyway, John?” 

“I…” John trailed off, making an effort to read the menu and maintain the integrity of his periphery. The way that Santino was moving to place a hand just under John’s elbow. Probably to any outsider’s untrained, unsuspecting eye, the gesture could read as friendly, drawing John into a world with which he was unfamiliar. Finally, John went along, he said, “I’m bad at making decisions.” 

Well, he was, sort of. Santino stared up at him for a moment longer, as if trying to figure out what John was really trying to say. Then he let go, both of John’s elbow and seemingly, of the thought. Paolo, who stood behind the counter, looked like he was half between wanting to pull out a shotgun from underneath where he was standing, or wanting to run away. 

“Of course you are, John.” Santino gave John’s elbow one last condescending pat before turning to place their order. “Good thing I’m here, no?” 

*

The gelato made John feel better, but then Santino insisted they sit outside, commandeering a table with a couple of wonky plastic chairs and a lopsided sun umbrella. 

“You realize you could be shot from at least five different places sitting here,” John said. 

“Six,” Santino said, licking his spoon. John looked for a minute, and then he looked away. Best keep alert and his eyes elsewhere. 

“Excuse me?” 

“You could shoot me,” Santino grinned. “Right now, right here. Although it’s bad manners to off a man while he’s eating.” 

“And now you care about manners? It’s also bad manners to shove a cue down a man’s throat because you lost a game of billiards.” John could have said he was tempted, and that the urge to put a bullet through Santino’s temporal lobe and watch as his brain spilled from his skull was growing stronger by the day. But John disliked repeating himself. 

Santino’s hand stuttered, and a dollop of half melted gelato plopped onto the table. They both stared at it. If John really used his imagination, the quickly spreading sticky pool almost looked like brain matter. 

Santino said, “Have you heard anything from Gianna?”

John checked just in case, even though he knew the answer. “No.” 

Santino’s mouth twitched up at one side. “Do you know, John, that this place used to be a pit?” 

John said, doing a quick sweep to be sure, “Doesn’t look like that now.” 

“Sure it doesn’t.” Santino shrugged. “Growing grapes is vogue again; there are jobs, people aren’t so afraid. And well. Papà believed in this place; he and my grandfather before him. He put money into this once damned village while everyone was fleeing from it to a city. And now.” 

“Now?” John prompted. 

Santino opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, an excited bark turned both of their heads. Once John saw that it really just a dog, a handsome labrador with a dark sheen to its coat made its way up to their table dragging a leash along with him. No, John decided as he looked again - her. She plopped her head unceremoniously on Santino’s lap and drooled all over his nice khaki trousers. John waited for an order, to maybe get rid of the dog. Or maybe something worse. 

Instead, Santino ruffled the dog behind her ears with some familiarity and murmured something in Italian that John didn’t quite catch. 

“ - _Mi dispiace_!” 

It was a woman, a redhead carrying an oversized bag that previously would have set John on edge. Now though, he was more fascinated by the way Santino flashed the woman his teeth, but didn’t seem to want to eat her. 

“No trouble,” said Santino, drying his fingers on a napkin, “I’ve always wanted a dog.”


	2. Part II

“Do you?” 

The easy mood purported by gelato and the sun didn’t last. Not that John thought it would. By the time dinnertime rolled around, the weight of the cabin settled in, as if it’d never left and was just there waiting for them to return. 

John felt it, the blackness of Santino’s mood as he was in the kitchen staring despondently at a pre-seasoned chicken that had come in a bag. The instructions told him to heat the oven and wait two hours. At least, it didn’t smell terrible. 

“What?” 

Santino appeared at the archway leading into the kitchen, glass and book still in hand. 

“Want a dog.” 

“Yes.” Santino nodded; he actually looked halfway amused when John looked surprised. “Did you think I’d lie about something so simple?” 

John considered his answer, decided that Santino probably wouldn’t like it, and ergo kept it to himself. “Why don’t you have a dog, then?” 

“I live in a no pets complex,” Santino said, “but you know that.” 

John did know that, but so far hadn’t had the pleasure. “I also know that your super knows who you are, and can probably be bribed, with the right number.” 

Now Santino’s eyebrows went all the way up. He went to refill his glass, and then came very close to John. Close enough that John could nearly taste wine on his breath. “John, I’m beginning to think you have no idea who I am.” 

John said, “Well.” 

Although that was hardly an invitation, Santino surged forward and pinned John strategically against the kitchen counter, the edge of the marbled top digging tellingly against his spine. The kiss that came afterwards wasn’t gentle either, it was hungry, and it had teeth. John was glad to give into it for the moment. It was a way to release the buildup of tension that had gathered in his body. It had no name, but John could feel it pushing more and more against him, inside of him, the more he spent in this cabin with invisible ghosts he didn’t know about, and Santino D’Antonio’s more or less insufferable company. 

“John,” Santino murmured against his mouth and John wanted him to stop talking. So he yanked at a fistful of Santino’s hair and elicited a quiet groan that maybe he wouldn’t mind hearing again. 

Santino worked quick, and didn’t seem to hesitate when he tugged John’s shirt over his head. There was nothing of shyness and only surety in his fingers as he spread his hands over John’s tattoos. 

“Do you think I don’t know how to get what I want, hm? Is that what you think?” 

John braced a hand across Santino’s throat, and Santino’s pulse reliably quickened against John’s palm. At first it was its own thing, and had all the familiar trappings of a bad idea. And then, it became indistinguishable from the heady buzz that spread everywhere in John’s system: from the base of his skull to the base of his dick, to every ridge of his spine. 

Then there was another buzz. 

“Don’t pick up,” Santino said, a new, strained sort of heat in his voice. “Don’t pick up and you can suck me off.” 

Like it was some sort of prize. John took in Santino’s darkened, clouded eyes and imagined licking every inch of him until he begged for what he wanted. 

So maybe it was. 

“It might be Gianna.” 

“Fuck Gianna.” 

John checked his phone. He’d had the crazy idea of not picking up after all, but it was, and suddenly a new urgency overtook the one down south. It was easy enough for John to let go of Santino and step away from him. Easy enough, because he had a job to do. 

*

John retreated to his bedroom, walking quickly, willing most of the warm thrum of his body to dissipate near the soles of his feet. 

“John? Everything all right?” 

On a second thought, John closed the door behind him and leaned against the door handle, hoping the discomfort would bring back some good sense. “Yeah.” 

“You sound out of breath.” 

“I went for a run.” 

“Did you leave Santino alone?” Gianna said immediately. John could see even in those few words that he hadn’t done himself any favors. 

“He came with me,” John answered deftly enough, “complained the whole way.” 

Now she laughed, “He would. My brother isn’t a runner. I was just calling to say I’m sitting down with Civello tomorrow. See if we can’t put this stupid misunderstanding behind us.” 

“Stupid,” John echoed. Then he wished he hadn’t. Santino was probably listening outside the door. “Okay. That’s good.” 

“A quarrel between children at the billiards’ table,” Gianna said. “Of course it’s stupid. I’ll call you tomorrow.” 

“I’ll be here,” John said, and hung up. He sank down onto the floor and stared at the mess he’d left behind in his hurry to leave, earlier in the afternoon. Cleaning solvent, another gun that needed to be cleaned, spare magazines, a few dirty cloths. 

The doorknob rattled near John’s head and he felt the unmistakable force of a kick against the wood. 

“Fucking let me in.” Santino’s voice sounded from the other side out in the hallway. 

John moved and the door opened. He was suddenly terrified that his body might pull towards finishing what’d they started earlier in the kitchen. 

Santino said, “What’d she say?” 

“That she’s sitting down with Civello tomorrow. They’re going to try to work something out, and you and I can return to civilization as we know it.” John kept “stupid” out of it, and Santino didn’t ask. 

Instead, Santino, made an unimpressed noise in his throat. “Took her long enough. Does she know that Gregorio Civello knows how to reach you?” 

“I would assume so,” John said. The same temptation was now crawling up and down his veins, but unlike before, when the want had hit him like a sudden wave, John knew to look for it and temper it, to quell it into submission. A day was nothing. 

A day was nothing. John held the mantra in his head as he got to his feet. Santino was still standing in front of the door, blocking his way. 

John said, “Move.” 

Santino did, and they said nothing else for the rest of the evening. 

*

“Let’s go somewhere,” Santino stood very near him, filling up John’s vision where the ceiling ought to be. “If we stay here, we might fuck.” 

“I’m not twenty-two,” John said, letting himself close his eyes and his mind wander. His day was clearly off to a brilliant start. “Fucking is the last thing on my mind.” 

Except when it wasn’t. John had quelled and tempered the thing that had reared its ugly head; now the thing lived in him, squirreling near his gut. 

Santino placed a hand flat on John’s abdomen. The touch was warm, and its intent was just about palpable like a crack of electricity in the dry air. It was too easy, for John to imagine the same hand skimming over his cock. “Okay. If you say so.” 

John sighed and reached to take Santino’s hand and moved it pointedly onto the mattress, “Fine. Where are we going?” 

*

Where Santino wanted to go was a truffle festival in Alba that was held every year. It was a short drive, since Alba was only the next village over. Apparently, Santino’s fondest memory of the festival wasn’t the food, but that once when he’d commandeered a donkey and caused a lot of excitement. And a lot of damage. 

“A donkey,” said John. He was happy enough to let the words hang in the balance, he had no idea whether he ought to be impressed. “Did you gut it? Sell it for meat?” 

“Just to see if I could,” Santino confirmed, shrugging. “Mamma was impressed with me; she always was. Gianna and Papà not so much.” There was the mildest of smiles playing at his lips without its usual unpleasant caveats. “But not every boy could yoke a donkey and get it to mind, you know. I think I even won the palio. I can’t really remember.” 

For all the years that John had spent in the service of the Camorra, Amerigo never mentioned his wife; Gianna never mentioned her mother except to say that New York had a special place in her heart. For what it was worth, John had never heard Santino speak about his mother, either. 

“...Why did you stop vacationing in Barolo?” John asked. He hadn’t meant to, really, but the silence was heavier than he remembered from last time, and he found that he disliked it. 

“Everyone had better things to do,” Santino said, and nothing else after that; he readjusted his sunglasses and turned away to stare out the window, as if to keep John from speaking. 

*

Where John might have been nervous about escorting Santino into a crowd before, he felt better about it now. Gianna had a temper too, but it mostly lived behind her ribcage, like the dark thing that had taken up residence near John’s gut. John was sure Gianna understood the importance of grace under fire, something that her brother had no chance of understanding, not even in theory. 

But for once, Santino wasn’t full of his usual bravado and didn’t seem so keen on testing John’s patience. He merely wandered, stall by stall, as if he wasn’t quite all there. 

When Santino did speak to him, it was to ask John what he thought about the truffle oil they had back at the cabin, and whether they ought to get more, having more or less decimated the supply in the kitchen working through all the bread.

(Despite this, Santino still insisted that John had no taste.)

John could have said, all things considered, that if he had any semblance of taste, he wouldn’t have gone into contract killing as a job. 

But then, John hadn’t really had a choice, so it wasn’t really an argument that held water. He liked to think that he would have chosen differently, but then again, maybe he wouldn’t have.

“If you’d like,” John agreed. 

“I also need to borrow your phone.” Santino held out his hand. “Please.” 

“What’s the matter with yours?” John asked.

“I don’t want to give her the satisfaction,” Santino said, shrugging. “But it’s important that I get a hold of my sister.” 

Gianna didn’t always have to ask John to do things, but she did, because she could. That Santino wanted to do the same perhaps wasn’t so surprising. “Here you go.” 

Santino nodded thanks and put the phone to his ear. As he waited, John looked around and became more than slightly conscious of the way Santino tapped his fingers at his side when he was impatient. Somebody brushed by John, and instinctively, John straightened his jacket.

“ _Sono io_ ,” said Santino, exhaling loudly. “What fucking took you so long? Listen, before you go into that meeting, there’s something you should know. Me and Michael Civello, it’s because -” 

John didn’t get to hear the rest because a loud familiar _bang_ went off nearby. Then another, and another. The lazy lull of the marketplace suddenly sped up tenfold. High-pitched screams melded together with the gunshots and John dragged Santino down. The phone flew out of his hand, and cracked under the mass of stampeding feet. 

“...You’re bleeding,” John said, words sputtered out of him, a beat or two behind where they ought to be; it was suddenly hard for him to talk. His head was ringing in several places and he couldn’t figure out why. Didn’t need to, either, since there were more pressing matters at hand. “You okay?” 

“It’s -” Santino looked and sounded like something was stuck in his throat. “- It’s not my blood. Might be yours.” 

Come to think of it, John was in a bit of pain. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to remain still, to not give in. He said, speaking much more slowly than before, mindful, “I’ll manage.”

Then Santino’s eyes widened. “John, behind -” 

In one sense, John was glad for the pain - discomfort - that now stymied his limbs from moving, but only a little. He could still move, and he could still move _fast_ if only because he needed to. The pain cleared everything up, just like Amerigo’s being dead had cleared his system of any and all sense of loyalty in the inconvenient way. 

This was a job. And he was here to do a job. 

What’s more, John Wick was good at his fucking job. With the echoes of the shots still stuck in his ears and sinking down, to his tightened muscles, John whipped around, catching one man in a quick uppercut at the side of his jaw. John heard the cracking of bone, the sticky, muddy sound of blood, and then John shot him twice in the face, just to be sure. 

John hardly needed the warning. 

Before he could move to trade any sort of blows with the dead guy’s companion not two paces behind him, two gunshots sounded in quick succession from behind John. The guy folded like he was a piece of thin paper clutching at one knee, even though both were bent at an unusual angle. His face looked just as white. 

John shot the man for a third time between the eyes just for good measure, then he turned around. “Thanks. I had it handled.” 

“Certainly,” said Santino, pistol in hand; a sort of grimness now pinched his expression, leaving no room for the boyish smugness that John was so used to seeing as part of him. “But I’d rather you not bleed out on me. It’ll make us both look bad. Come on, I’ll drive.” 

*

They got back to the cabin in record time, less than fifteen minutes. The pain was not enough for John to pass out, but he was grateful to Santino for not wasting any time. He was also grateful for the fact that no one seemed to have followed them back to the outskirts of Barolo, but that didn’t mean the danger was over, either. 

The pain grew worse, inevitably, because John felt safe. Or he didn’t feel _safe_ , but the anxiety that was once muted from having somebody to shoot in the face went straight back into the wound that was currently bleeding him out. 

“Gut wound,” Santino said, after a moment. “You’ll live. But we have to get the bullet out. Or, bullets. I think there are two. Stay here.” 

By some miracle, Santino had managed to get John into the large bath downstairs and divest John of some of his clothes: his shirt, that was soaked through, his trousers were down, to expose the injury in question, and he tried to keep an ongoing interest in his wound. Not the worst, but not great. 

“John, _wake up_.” 

Part of John wanted to pass out. His body seemed to pushing against the foreign metal inside of him, and that kept him awake, to the point of being almost too conscious. “If I faint, you can take advantage of me.” 

Santino was holding a bottle of something under John’s nose. It smelled alcoholic and strong. Must be the emergency Blanton’s. “We really have to work on your sense of humor. Drink.” 

John did, gulping thirstily even though he wasn’t. Afterwards, he wiped his mouth and tasted the tang of somebody else’s blood on his bottom lip. “Never really needed one.” 

“I think you do, desperately, is a bit of an understatement,” Santino said, “And what I say goes. - Is that all you need?” 

“It’s not like I’m bad with pain.” John flexed his left hand, the one that wasn’t holding the bottle. Good, he still had all of his fingers, still had control. “At least give me a gun.” 

“No.” Santino didn’t even pause to think about it, and unlike every other time he’d refused John something, he didn’t relish the word. Santino worked quickly, laying implement after implement on a clean towel right by the tub. “The last thing I need is for you to shoot my head off while I’m digging bullets out of you. Sure you don’t want anymore to drink? There’s plenty of Blanton’s.” There was a trace of smugness now, just limning the edge of his voice again, but John took no solace in that, either. 

“I can do it myself,” John said. The splash of bourbon sounded invitingly against the glass, and after staring at the bottle a little longer, he held it up to his lips again. This time, he was careful, drinking in short, measured sips, conscious of the task that awaited him.

“Fuck’s sake,” Santino flared, and this time, it was real anger, not smudged or more muddled by anything else, by the boy he once was. “You’re thinking it, aren’t you? That I can’t take my own fucking bullets.” 

John said, a beat too slow, but he thought he could blame it on the pain, which was dulling slowly, receding bit by bit to the back of his head. “I’m not thinking that.” 

“I don’t believe you.” 

John drank more Blanton’s, and then good sense took over this side of too late. He set the bottle down beside him - still within reach, but John would have to think about it, first.

“I was thinking that you have a choice.” That was not something that John meant to say so plainly; it was the truth, but his job wasn’t to tell the truth, it was simply to make the truth more convenient for somebody else. “That someone else will always be there to take a bullet for you, if you so wish. I take my own bullets because no one else will. That’s all.” 

John felt it very keenly before he heard the undeniable click of a gun’s safety. Although whether it cocked on or off, he couldn’t say. 

Santino dragged the gun from the deep furrow between John’s eyebrows, down the bridge of his nose, over his mouth, and then stopped right on his pulse, digging the muzzle right into the side of John’s neck. “Let me help you. “ 

“I said I can do it myself.” John managed what little ire he could and held it stubbornly in his throat. 

But then suddenly the resolute pressure of the gun, the familiarity of being so near to death, was gone. Instead, John was aware of Santino’s thumb resting lightly where the gun had been.

“I’m helping you,” Santino said. He had a knife in one hand, it looked clean, clean enough as to even glint in the artificial too bright lights of the bath, and most importantly, it looked sharp. In his other hand, he held a pair of tweezers. “You really think it’s my first time around a bullet?” 

John shrugged. “I’m sure you’re a valuable asset on nights out.” He meant that to sound like an insult, but even now, was conscious that it didn’t land that way. 

“I am, actually.” Santino reached for another fresh towel, after a moment, as if he’d just remembered something. He folded the cloth lengthwise, and then again. “Bite. Never thought I’d say this, but please shut up, John. Let me work.” 

*

John poked gingerly at the ugly, but completely practical array of stitches slashed across his gut to extend right across his left hip. 

In time, it would join the other scars on his body, just another close call. Maybe that was why Santino had been so keen to offer his help. John might have no idea how many marks now adorned his body, how many times the devil said to him, “not yet,” but some of the scars preserved on his skin came to be by the grace of other people, and John considered them debts. 

Now, Santino was there too. Like he probably wanted. 

“All right?” Santino asked. 

John opened his eyes. He was conscious of the odd sensation of Santino’s hair tickling the side of his neck, right near his jaw. He settled for, “I’ll live.” 

“Of course you are. Want some more Blanton’s? I remembered to bring it down with me.” 

John glanced down at where Santino had apparently made himself comfortable. He thought about shoving the man away from him, and then decided it was too much work. “You know, when I said that you wanted to take advantage of me.” 

Santino rolled his eyes up at John, but otherwise didn’t move. He said, “Let me guess. Were you joking?” 

“Yeah.” 

Santino laughed. It was an estranged, world-weary sound that made him seem much older than twenty-two. “You are in my employ, if I wanted to take advantage of you, John, I would not ask. I'd just pay you for your time. Papà would say that was uncouth of me. But like I say, he was never impressed.” 

The flickering screens on the wall opposite served to remind John just now, just how much in the hole with the Camorra he was. He was even, very literally underground. “Do you miss your father?” The question slipped out of John’s mouth before he could really give it its due. 

Remarkably, Santino didn’t threaten to rip his head off for it, either. But John supposed, that if the young man wanted to, he wouldn’t have just stopped at threats. Threats were probably even a waste of time. In that, Santino and Gianna were a lot alike. 

“I never thought of him as my old man,” Santino said, finally. “You were more of a son to him than I am. Was.” 

“...What?” 

“Oh, don’t play stupid, John.” 

“I’m not.” John told him, and it was the truth. “Amerigo and I were...maybe he was just impressed that I could drink. Said it was irrefutably Italian.” 

Santino straightened from his previous pose, and the warm weight that was his head moved from John’s shoulder. He cleared his throat and pinched his expression like before, but there was almost a certain parody underneath, as if he wanted John to be sure that it was a mask. “ _Mio figlio_ , no. Wait, let me start over -” this time, Santino spread his hands, “ - _Mio figlio inutile_ , when you grow up, you must want to be like John Wick! A man of sheer focus and purpose.” 

“I’m at least one of those things,” John agreed vaguely, “I think.” 

“Could have fooled him,” Santino snorted. “I mean, you did.” 

“It takes two to fool a man,” John said. “Someone told me that once. You have to allow yourself to be fooled, and the other person has to play a good con. It’s a two-way street.” 

“Now, John.” A familiar smirk was back on Santino’s lips now, like it’d never left. For reasons he didn’t want to visit too closely, John found himself relieved, like the world was right side up again. “I know you didn’t just call Papà stupid. It’s bad to speak ill of the dead. Even I know that.” 

Speaking of a con, their faces were impossibly close again and John almost - 

He held himself, if barely. “...What do you mean?” 

“It’s why Michael Civello is dead with a cue shoved so deep inside of him that you’d probably have to pull it out of his ass.” Santino shrugged. John could tell he was inclined a certain way, but somehow, Santino didn’t look nearly as proud of his achievement as he ought to have been. There was also another part of John that appreciated Santino’s initiative, but maybe that wasn’t worth thinking about, now. If he survived to later, then that was later. 

“What’d he say?” 

“I’m not repeating it,” Santino said, setting his jaw in an attractive, stubborn line. “Anyway, that’s why.” 

“You realize, if you told Gianna this, she’d be - slightly less angry at you.” Of this, John wasn’t uncertain. 

“I know,” Santino nodded, and this time, John was only a little surprised. “She’d go to war. Like I would. But we can’t afford it. But it looks like we’re going to war anyway. Are you with me?” 

Somewhere, a phone chirped a cheap, electronic tune. 

John said, “It’s my other phone.” 

Santino said, “Yes, your other phone, in the name of _friendship_.” He raised a gun to John’s head - it might have even been John’s own gun, cocked the safety off. Now it was more than a word. It was a deed. 

“Well, go on, John.” 

John extracted his other phone from his person and held it to his ear. On second thought, he put the call on speaker. The vault grew heavy with stillness, and John didn’t think Santino was breathing. The metal, cold and hot at the same time, pressed tellingly into the space between John’s eyes. 

Definitely paying attention then. John gave himself another minute, cleared his throat. Nice and steady. “This is John.” 

“ _Buongiorno_ , John,” said Gregorio Civello, “I had the worst feeling, that you might not be reachable at this number.” 

John said, “Well, here I am. You’ve reached me.” 

The silence that lingered on the other end said everything that Gregorio didn’t. Then the man said, “Are you alone, John?” 

John said, “Yeah.” It didn’t take much to lie; he just needed to take a deep breath. 

The relief came in a rush in Gregorio’s next breath. “Good, then this is just a courtesy call. The way I mean it to be. There are sixty men encroaching upon a certain cabin outside Barolo. If you hand over Santino D’Antonio, then all of this can go away very quietly. You were a sensible man, the last I knew you.” 

Santino made a noise, and before it could effectively leave his throat, John reached out with his free hand and clamped him firmly over the mouth. 

“Not if they all have guns. I’d imagine it’d be loud.” 

Gregorio laughed, “That’s what I miss most about you, John. Your sterling humor.” 

“Sure.” Now, John felt the muzzle of the gun less, as if Santino was suddenly more invested in something else. But he felt the younger man’s gaze, as keen and sharp as ever, fixated on John’s other phone, also a brick. John’s skin burned with it. “Was I a sensible man, the last we spoke?” He didn’t remember. There had been over three hundred people at Amerigo’s funeral and John thought he recalled Gregorio just about, in the sea of faces. 

But nothing else. 

“A man with two phones is always sensible,” said Gregorio. “I imagine your number’s gone up.” 

“I haven’t thought about it,” John admitted, and was surprised by how much of that was the truth. Of course, John always had a number etched into the back of his head like a long itch. A number kept a man straight and sane, as he was. A number was all the risks that a man was willing to take, and all the risks he wasn’t. It was dangerous not to have a number. 

“Well, let me put it this way,” Gregorio dragged out the sentiment. “I’m surprised the D’Antonios can still afford you.” 

Santino made a noise, barely audible, but John slid his hand down anyway, and pressed in meaningfully against his trachea. 

John said, “That’s not a number.” 

“No,” Gregorio agreed. “It’s an offer. This time I don’t give you a number. You give me yours. If I were you, I’d think quickly.” 

Everything was still all around John, as if time itself sat precariously on the tip of a pin. Finally, John said, after inhaling a long breath, to prepare himself for a new reality, one without numbers, “ - And what would Michael’s number have been?” 

“Excuse me?” 

John felt Santino swallow pointedly against the press of his thumb. In that moment, they seemed to have understood one another, in a way that hadn’t been possible before. “You heard me,” John said, “Michael’s number. The number you’d affix to your dead nephew’s -” 

“John,” Santino said, “enough.” 

“Anyway,” John turned his attention to the newly leaden silence that had sunk in at the other end. It wasn’t the same quiet as before. “I don’t have a number.” 

“I’m sorry to hear that, John.” 

A muted series of tremors seemed to shake its way through the vault, and when John moved to speak again, he found that the call was dead. The screen that showed the front entrance was also cut. John stared a moment longer at the phone in his hand, and then moved to break it in two. He let the pieces drop onto the floor, and then dug the heel of his shoe into them. 

“Showoff,” Santino snorted, teetering between amusement and something else. But he was already on his feet, helping himself to a Benelli sat on the gun rack. He loaded it with a fresh magazine, the motion practiced and fluid. Nearly something John could delude himself into liking. 

“You like it.” John said, and maybe he didn’t feel quite so terrible this time, saying that out loud. 

“Yes, maybe a little.” 

*

Gregorio Civello might have boasted a venerable army of sixty men, but in John’s opinion and experience, one never sent more men than he could either afford to lose, or more simply, needed. It was clear which inevitability Gregorio had prepared for, this time around. 

“Gianna is going to kill me,” Santino said. He was still holding a Benelli but the end of it looked sticky and wet. Which was just as well, the gun also looked like it was out of rounds. “Or crush me with renovation costs.” 

John finished what he was doing, which was drawing a knife neatly across somebody’s neck, and they both watched as said body went from living to dead. As the man reached out to grab at the cuff of John’s trousers, Santino moved and stepped very neatly on the man’s wrist and more blood spurted from the poor goner’s throat as he tried to scream. 

“Looks like you’re going to need new shoes, too.” John looked him up and down. “Is that going to put a strain on the budget?” 

Santino twitched with the Benelli still in hand, and John moved mostly without thinking. Obviously, there was that part of him that ignored the barely closed-up hole near his gut, and thought that Gregorio should have sent more men. It barely took anything all for him to relieve Santino of the weapon and pin the younger man against the nearest flat surface.

Santino didn’t exactly fight him on this which was either a good or bad thing. John couldn’t figure out which. Maybe he didn’t even care one way or the other. 

But then Santino brought a hand up to grip around John’s collar, tight enough so that John took notice. 

“Do you want to fuck?” 

“Yeah,” John swallowed, “I do want to fuck.” 

Santino seemed pleased. His grasp loosened and then he put his fingers against John’s mouth. John tasted blood. “Why do you want to fuck? Is it because you think I look pretty?” 

Now, John thought he understood. He shook his head, but otherwise kept still. “No, not because I think that.” 

Santino leaned forward and kissed him primly, keeping his fingers exactly where they were before. He was a good liar too, the kind that could lie with his body, his whole being. 

*

“Please! You must understand, _signore_! They left me no choice! They threatened my family! My livelihood!”

Paolo-from-the-gelato-shop turned out to be a Paolo Cazale, who knew Santino’s mother way back when, but apparently not the rest of her family. Not in the way it really counted. They caught the man with his pants literally down around his ankles and the man howled in several languages as John tied his hands and feet. 

“Please hit him,” Santino said, “Not too hard, I don’t want to knock him out, just to have him pay attention.” 

John turned and struck the man summarily under the jaw, cracking his mandible. Blood bubbled out of Paolo’s mouth but he seemed to have gotten the message, finally. 

“I do the talking now, yes?” 

Paolo nodded. 

“Gregorio Civello should have never threatened your family. I’m sorry about that, I really am.” Given the way each of Paolo’s legs were bound to the legs of the chair, it was easy for Santino to kneel between Paolo’s legs and affect an expression of boyish penitence. “But you should have come to me. Or if you had something against me personally, you should have gone to Gianna. I confess, I’m not the easiest man to like.”

When Paolo jerked back at the touch, as if to rid himself of Santino’s proximity to him, John stuck a gun at the back of the man’s head. Paolo went still again. 

Santino’s eyes raised briefly to meet John’s, and that was enough. He continued speaking, “But now here you are. Here we both are. You insulted me; what’s more, you sullied a great tradition, and now we both don’t have a choice. Because I am not Civello, I won’t threaten your family.” 

Then he stood again, but not before patting Paolo very gently on the knee, like the man was a dog. When Santino stepped out of the line of fire, John emptied the entire clip into Paolo Cazale’s skull, and this time, Santino took care to keep his shoes clean. 

*

“I don’t want to fuck where there are dead bodies,” Santino said. “I have standards.” 

John thought he was learning far too much about Santino’s standards, and was perhaps coming to his own conclusions as to why Santino D’Antonio was a difficult man to like. But he looked around for the sake of proving a point anyway. He’d never been inside Santino’s bedroom at the cabin, or indeed at any of his other residences. 

“Nobody’s dead in here.” 

“Sometimes, John, I swear that you’re -” 

John had a long enough reach that he could haul Santino to him and covered his mouth in a rough kiss. Teeth and tongue. Santino didn’t resist, exactly, but one hand came up to pinch John very close to where he’d been shot, as if to remind him who was still calling the shots. 

“I’m what?” John asked, pulling back an inch. 

“I’ll tell you later.” 

John dropped down to his knees after that, and found that Santino was already decently hard, and wondered how long he’d been that way, and if John had really been so high on his own bloodlust that he might not have noticed. 

He exhaled warm air over the head of Santino’s cock and heard a shaky sigh above him. When Santino moved to arch his hips forward, John pressed him back, kept him in place. 

“John, what the fuck -” Santino swallowed thickly, “What are you doing?” 

“Just thinking about how you’re really a difficult person,” John said, still very close to his erection. He ran one finger along the vein, feeling it pulse under his touch. 

“If I weren’t a dificult person, perhaps you wouldn’t have wanted to fuck me quite so much.” A hand settled on top of John’s head, surprisingly strong fingers curling in his hair, but John didn’t know why he was surprised. “You do, don’t you? Want to _fuck_ me.” 

The dark thing near John’s gut rose at the challenge and wound tight around his dick. He imagined Santino squeezing around him even tighter than that, and gave in, swallowing him down deep, fast, and apparently it was good enough that Santino swore in Italian. There were even words in there John didn’t know. Maybe if he remembered later, he’d ask. 

“If I - were a less difficult person, I’d be just like everyone else.” 

John took him out of his mouth then, but took a hold of Santino firmly in hand before he could leverage any complaint, jerking him in slow, full motions from the base of his cock to the tip, damp from John’s spit and his own precome. 

“I don’t think you’re like anyone else,” John said. Santino twitched hard in his hand in response. “Yeah?”

“Yes, don’t come.” 

“I wasn’t fucking going to.” 

That wasn’t exactly the response John was looking for, but maybe it was better. Knowing he had Santino’s full attention, John slipped his fingers into his mouth, wetting them slowly, almost inviting the man to drink him up. After, he cupped his hand around Santino’s ass, feeling slicked fingers move over prickling skin. It was only when John was ready to press fingers into him that he began sucking Santino again, still keeping a hand on his hip to maintain control. 

“My phone’s going off.” Santino said, and then as soon as he’d said it, John was aware of it too. He swallowed what he could and waited. 

The phone stopped ringing, and then started to ring again. 

“It’s probably Gianna.” 

“Probably,” John said, “She’ll probably keep ringing until one of us picks up.” Soon, he noticed a change in the way Santino was fucking back against his fingers, which were in knuckle-deep, the movements harder, and erratic. 

“If you pick up, I’ll kill you. Don’t think I fucking won’t.” 

“I know you will.” John looked at him. “I might even enjoy it.” He took his fingers out of Santino and enjoyed the way his face twisted. “But I’d rather fuck you, not your sister. Turn around.” 

“...You can’t tell me what to do.” But Santino’s body said otherwise, and his hands certainly had a mind of their own, and they were certainly making John’s goal of fucking him until he couldn’t stand or speak that much more attainable. 

John got up, and leaned in to press his tongue against Santino’s heartbeat. He felt the heart sounds blur into one another, bleeding into his own buzz. “So maybe I ask. Please turn around; please don’t touch yourself; please let me fuck you until you can’t stand.” 

Santino said, very thinly, “Okay, that freaks me out.” 

“Thought it might,” John said. He stepped away, leaving a bare inch for Santino to maneuver and somehow, the other man found no trouble doing so. He also stepped out of his pants properly and kicked them (with the offending phone still in his pocket) clear across the room. Then he grabbed for John again. 

“Well? Fucking hurry up.” 

The phone was still ringing. John distracted himself by twisting Santino’s extended arm back above his head. Santino hissed and swore in the usual way until John entered him, and then the wretched sound quelled itself into something else, a moan that was deep and obscene. John bent and bit his shoulder. 

And it was good, it was better than the the stuff of John’s heady desires, now out of his head and imprinted on both of their bodies. He tried to move, at first slowly to savor it, the novelty of it, because. 

John said, “Fuck.” 

But it seemed to be that word, escaped from John’s mouth not completely with his permission, that seemed to have spurred Santino into action. His arms were still pinned above his head with John’s fingers still pinching his wrists, but he used the force of John’s grip to push back, to grind onto his cock in quick, hard circles. 

And of course, a taunt came with: “I thought you were going to fuck me, John. Be a man of purpose.” That was not so much a bad thing, as it could have been. John was beginning to develop a thing for the line Santino walked with leisure, between being displeased and being turned on. 

John was pretty sure it took a lot more than a fuck to make him into someone with purpose, but he was happy enough to try it out and make a start. He let go of Santino’s wrist to instead gasp around his throat, something pointed, purposeful. He could feel the younger man swallow against his touch and then he rolled his hips forward, with fucking purpose. 

With so much fucking purpose that eventually Santino gave up and bit out, “Please.”

“I missed that,” John said, but he twitched so hard that it hurt. 

Santino scowled, “Fuck you.” 

John figured that was close enough. 

It was hard and quick after that, and John squeezed Santino’s throat as he came, and right on cue, Santino followed, dripping come onto the floor without even having to touch himself. But it wasn’t like John was telling him what to do. 

Then they did it about three more times, until they’d wrung everything out of each other that there was to expel and the silence around them was deafening, devoid of everything but shallow breathing.

*

The next morning, John went downstairs and surveyed the damage. There was a lot of damage, but most of the worst of it was confined to the front rooms. The kitchen was largely unscathed and he celebrated the occasion by fucking Santino while the younger man made coffee. He was aware of the unsteadiness in Santino’s stance and hooked one hand under his knee while pressing him against one of the counters for support and leverage - but mostly leverage. 

By now, there wasn’t an inch of John’s tattoos that Santino hadn’t acquainted with his tongue, as if the ink was some sort of very good cocaine. He fit his mouth over a dark swathe over John’s shoulder and was, John thought, mostly paying attention to the whirring of the machine behind them.

“You know it only takes a minute to make espresso.”

John adjusted ever so slightly so that Santino’s expression went reliably slack. His grip tightened on John’s arm, digging his fingers in. John said, just to make a point, “Cold coffee won’t kill you.” 

“You’re a heathen,” Santino bit out against his mouth, licking his teeth, “We’re going to have fucking coffee, and then you’re going to fuck me again. Somewhere where we don’t have to worry so much about keeping things neat.” Something else John learned about Santino: dead bodies were too much, but the kitchen was too neat. It nearly sounded reasonable.

And John still needed to call Gianna, but neither of them wanted to say that out loud. Still, John thought that sounded like a fair compromise. 

Gianna picked up before the first ring had even cleared. “Unless you were fucking strangling my brother for the last ten hours for being a fucking reckless bastard, I don’t want to hear any excuses, John.” 

John stared down at his hands, and then he looked at the red marks around Santino’s throat that scarcely had a chance to heal from all the excitement. “Okay, then that was what I was doing.” 

“He learn anything?” Gianna said, though not completely in earnest, probably. The important thing was that if she knew that John was joking or something like it, she didn’t let on. The strangeness of John calling from Santino’s number hardly seemed to have registered because it wasn’t something Gianna needed to know right away. 

“Maybe not yet,” John said, keeping his eyes level on the espresso that Santino had set down in front of him. “I’ll work on it.”


End file.
